Took my Yamaha R15M on mountain roads for the first time: An experience

After MMRT, it was finally time for another long ride, this time a first taste of ghat roads. Hope to do longer trips in the future with more twisties and hairpins!

BHPian R15M_Rider recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Experiencing Mountain Roads on the R15M for the first time

• Trip Route: Chennai-Yelagiri-Chennai
• Date : 4th May 24 & 5th May 24
• Distance: 237(Up) + 237(Down) = 474 Km

After MMRT, it was finally time for another long ride, this time a first taste of ghat roads. I started early, around 6.00 AM from Chennai to escape the typical relentless afternoon heat of May. With the tank filled up, a day before, there was no need of a fuel stop, and the planned first stop was somewhere near Sriperumbudur.

With less traffic thanks to early hours, I reached Sriperumbudur quite quickly. Sriperumbudur is home to several heavy machine factories, including automobiles. Yamaha India also has a manufacturing plant here with the other one in UP, so I guess, my bike was near its "pseudo home" ! With a brief breakfast, next stop was planned at Vellore, around 86 km from Sriperumbudur.

A short breather at Sriperumbudur.

The NH 48 until Vellore were average to frustrating at best. So many diversions! With a lot of flyover construction going on, I lost count of the number of times traffic was diverted a narrow service road and after a while redirected to the main road. Thankfully, the weather was not its worst as I had expected and there was decent breeze until 10.00 at least. The road surface was not good either, several non-immediately visible bumps appear out of nowhere, enough to unsettle your bike if you aren't 100% alert. I would advice to exercise caution in this stretch until the construction is completed and we get a properly laid surface.

After Vellore, the roads were much better and I finally could open the throttle with more confidence. Finally some good stretch of NH, I could unleash some power of this beast on! Unlike my previous Pondy trip, this time with wider roads, I maintained a good 110-115 kmph cruise speed for quite sometime whenever the roads were clear and an occasional 124 kph when the road was really open and I could view the horizon fully. Moments like these truly makes a guy fall in love with the machine and everything else vanishes. You need to experience it to feel it.

Finally, around 10.45, I reached the foothills of Yelagiri. Time for my R15 to show its magic in twisty hairpins! I must say, after the race track, ghat roads must be the second home of the R15. Very similar to the race track, only the pace is 80% on the slower side with traffic which wasn't a factor on the former. But then again, I was having the time of my life. Taking 20-30 kph hairpins with an entry speed of 20-30 kph and leaning down a little like on the race-track and then as you clear it and start accelerating, while I did expect this will handle superbly, I never expected it to be this much fun!

I got new knee guards for this trip, I found riding pants out of my budget and hence opted for the next best thing.

Yelagiri, being a smaller hill compared to other famous hill stations like Ooty, Kodaikanal, Kolli Hills only has 14 hairpins. It certainly didn't feel like 14 too! I only wish this ghat road was longer, but hey everyone has to start somewhere right? And for a first ghat ride, it certainly didn't disappoint!

This is my second time to Yelagiri, of course, first time on bike. Overall, I guess since Yelagiri being a small hill and this being off season, the weather was still very much hot to what you would expect of a hill station, there wasn't much crowd overall. The rest of the day was spent on some known tourism spots to pass the time. While, I have seen, guys return on the same day, I generally wouldn't advice it especially in the summer. Also night riding on an NH with hardly any lighting, travel fatigue and what feels like a million diversions is extremely dangerous, even in a car, let alone a bike. There was even an isolated thunderstorm out of nowhere which pelted like anything for an hour or so. The one thing which I wished I had done before the trip was giving my R15 a wash, but thanks to the rain, it didn't matter!(its still dirty with dirt spots, but I am not complaining!) True example of nature is unpredictable!

Return:

Once again, similar plan - Start early, reach early and avoid afternoon sun-burn as much as possible. Before starting, I wanted to cherish something out of my first ghat ride on my bike. As I stated in my previous posts here, I am kind of an introvert and will always hesitate to try something which I haven't done before. I wanted to have some footage of my ride. Generally, I am not a fan of this helmet mounted cams - Go Pros and stuff. Only problem with this ideology is that, 5 years into the future, your recollection might not be as vibrant as it is now! I hate modifications to the bike even small ones apart from the indicator switch from halogen to LED. Though I didn't want to, but Phone mount is necessary so had to do something with that. I want to live the moment more rather than worry how my footage looks. So I went ahead and used my phone holder to capture a video of me riding on the downhill stretch. Mine is a closed phone holder, that is like a case and the phone will be inside it, that with the limited possibilities of angles you can get, this is what I came up with. Just the speedo in view and the dirty outer transparent outer cover of the holder really isn't helping the quality. On top of that I took the video in portrait position instead of landscape  I will try harder next time. 

But nevertheless, I had something to relive this special moment. Early morning, chill breeze smooth flowing curves and hairpins, not many things better than that for a motorcycle enthusiast for sure!

One final look at the foothills of Yelagiri before Goodbye

It took 15 minutes to reach the bottom and thereafter it was regular NH all the way. This time, got a lucky stretch with the horizon in view and with good road surface, managed for the first time to tuck in and touch a good speeds. Unreal feel though it was hardly for a second before I quickly came back to cruising speed of 105-110 kph.

Overall, rest of the journey was event free.....up until I reached my own street where a elderly guy on a TVS 50 rammed into my side fairing thanks to a blind spot on a turn where an auto was turning. By then I was quite drained thanks to Chennai's typcial humid weather and I could not find the energy to argue though I could've avoided it if I had learned to expect a guys on the straight road won't think twice for the blind spot possibility. He was also with a kid in the back so I just let it off though he had the audacity to tell me it was my mistake entirely. I had taken so much precautions for this long ride and to think, the only incident to occur is right on my doorstep! It lead a quite a big scratch on my side fairing and indicator and totally ruined my mood for an hour or so. Anyway, need to learn and move on.

I did face one niggle, after riding on high RPMs and high speeds for extended hours on the highway, if I give substantial amount of throttle, the quick shifter isn't engaging. I had to use the clutch to shift. This isn't occurring if I have lesser throttle input and not fully using it. Has anyone faced this kind of issue on the R15 V4? If yes, please share. Anyway, will have it checked in the next service.

Before wrapping up, so far I have ridden the R15 on:

1. Work Commutes
2. Highways (SH and NH)
3. Ghat Roads and Twisties
4. Race Track (MMRT)

And in every one of the scenarios, it excelled beyond my wildest dreams. As I mentioned quite a few times before. I don't think I will ever get enough of it. While I am indeed turning into a huge Yamaha fan and still with no experience of riding anything else, I still believe that, there aren't any other machines in the market that could've given me this kind of experience to make into a motorcyclist enthusiast like this one has.

Hope to do longer trips in the future with more twisties and hairpins! Hope you guys had a fun read.

Ride Safe! 

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.